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My right ring finger has been almost completely numb at the tip back to the back of my nail. The only visible signs of injury is a slight purple bruising on the underside of the middle section of the finger. There are no bite marks, scratches, redness or irritation otherwise. I've been doing lots of fragging and mounting over the weekend and rearranging lots of corals, but I don't remember ever feeling a pinch or anything painful. Is it likely that I got stung by something? I've never seen a bristleworm in my tank, and the only things in my tank that I think are known for stinging are my BTA and my elegance coral. But I've touched both of those many times before without ever having a reaction. Could it be zoas? I thought that the palytoxins in those were nothing to worry about.

I was working with some of my live rock about 3 months ago and I picked a peice up and felt somthing funny, looked and saw nothing, about 3-4 minutes later I have a very numb middle finger from the tip -just past the nail similar to what you decribe, went away later that night but found it very odd.

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Could it be the rock? While you were moving about could you have stuck yourself on a small sharp peice of rock. There are alot of nerve endings in the finger if you get stuck in the right spot I wouldn't see why your finger wouldn't go numb for a short time....yes no ?? Hell I'm just a cook but those are my two cents

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“You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.” Gandhi

I suppose that it could be rock, I have lots of Totoka which is extremely sharp. But I was getting my hands scratched up all the time when I was aquascaping and just got calloused from the thousands of miniature cuts - like micro paper cuts that didn't go through all of the layers of skin - never anything like this though with numbness and bruising.

bristleworms feel like brushing up against a plant with small stickers or something--just annoyance. I have bristles in my fingers as I type from moving rock on weekend--it's a pretty tiny pain--more like irritation.

I didn't notice the numbness until I woke up this morning. I thought it was asleep from laying on my arm funny, but it's gotten more numb as the day goes on, but it hasn't creeped - it's still just the tip section of the finger. I noticed the bruising after lunch when I was worried because of how annoying it is to type. It's not changed any in the past couple of hours.

I didn't notice the numbness until I woke up this morning. I thought it was asleep from laying on my arm funny, but it's gotten more numb as the day goes on, but it hasn't creeped - it's still just the tip section of the finger. I noticed the bruising after lunch when I was worried because of how annoying it is to type. It's not changed any in the past couple of hours. There's no needles or any sharp pains, just the slight feeling that's left behind when flesh is numbed like from lidocaine at the dentist or when a leg falls asleep. It's an equal numbness all around, but the bruising is dark purple though only mildly there like it's not real dense - it's the underside only of the middle section and only on one side of the finger going from the second knuckle and fading as it gets toward the third knuckle.

I really can't even see the slightest wound on my skin, so I'm doubtful that it's an infection. Elliott, I see that you're an M.D., but to me it looks like if the bruising is traveling it is going downward toward the tip instead of back up. A few years back I was always getting myself busted up with deep gashes from fighting with katana swords and such and I'd usually just wrap it up and sleep on it and then only go to ER the next day if it was obvious that it wouldn't possibly heal on it's own. Once a wound was so deep that I needed double layered stitches and another time I got blood poisoning from a very small wound on my foot but I could tell because of the dark purple line that was traveling up my leg. I had upset bowels last night and woke up early this morning with my throat feeling like I was ill which may have from swelling of lymph nodes. But I'm okay now except for the numbness and the bruising - and the numbness is starting to subside. So I'll wait it out and go to the ER if I feel any cardiovascular related symptoms. I'm working double shifts this week to finish a project at work and nobody else does my job so there's noone to cover for me. That's a lame excuse to not see a doctor, but my guess is that I'd just waste a copay and many hours in the waiting room only to ultimately have just a mild bruise on my finger looked at. Would a doctor be able to do blood tests that screen for all of the possible types of marine toxins that might be the cause?

Frizz, how long did it take to go from numbness and bruising to other symptoms, and what were the other symptoms?

My boss said that her husband got stung by something that he thought was an anemone while they were diving (but maybe it was an elegance coral or something that looks like an anemone). He had his thumb go totally numb later that day and it went away after a couple of days.

It's been a long time so I don't really remember that much. I know that it started turning rashy red very quickly & the only sensation that I had for a couple of days was itching. . It never really bruised but got very swollen & extremely red & super itchy. Then it was painful but I think that most of the pain was swelling related. It itched me like crazy for weeks & when the skin started sloughing of course it was painful.
I got stung on the knuckle & the skin was broken ther in a tiny place from the skelleton of the coral. It swelled, bubbled & blistered. A situation that I don't care to ever repeat. I have a very very healthy respect for that coral now & never do anything near it in my tank without gloves.

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"Beware the lolipop of mediocrity. Lick it once and you suck forever."

Hmm, yeah mine definitely isn't rash-like or itchy. I ran it under hot water for a few minutes earlier today which is when the numbness started to subside. Then it came right back within an hour or two. I just did that again and again the numbness has gone. So I'm hoping that if I do it a couple of more times it will flush out whatever toxin is there enough so that the circulation can continue in the area until the toxin is diluted and gone.

Hmm, does anyone know anything about metal allergies? I wear a sterling ring on that finger and I'm wondering if maybe I'm developing an allergy to silver, nickel, or copper. I've worn the ring on that finger for years, but only been dealing with saltwater on a daily basis for the past 4 or 5 months. So I wonder if the saltwater is reacting to the alloy and causing the reaction - maybe it needed to build up over time and the large amount of contact from rearranging the tank this weekend finally triggered the reaction enough to notice. So it turns out that the other 7.5% of sterling is usually copper! Is it possible that the saltwater is reacting with the copper or other metals in these short amounts of time that I'm reefing to be affecting me or my tank's parameters? I'd be especially interested to hear of other accounts of metal rings causing circulation problems.